


Immortal

by tianaluthien



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Angst, Death, F/M, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 17:40:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1866588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tianaluthien/pseuds/tianaluthien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is watching her through the crystal when it happens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Immortal

He is watching her through the crystal when it happens.

It is late; she is exhausted and slightly inebriated (oh yes, he’d watched the party at the club too), and the sight of her unsteady steps makes him smirk. But the smirk dies as even through the crystal he senses the _wrongness:_ she begins to look over shoulder, walking faster and faster; the streets are darker now, emptier.

A large hand grabs her shoulder – she screams – the crystal erupts in a blur of motion – there is an explosion, a flash—

“Sarah!”

Then he is there, kneeling beside her broken body as her blood pours bright red from a hole in her chest. He touches his mouth to her lips: no breath.

He starts to scream.

~*~

He takes the form of a barn owl and sits on a branch, waiting until the priest has said his right words and the mourners have at last drifted away. Once they are gone – _Good riddance. Did any of you pathetic mortals truly know her?_ – he swoops down to land at the graveside and transforms, staring down at the cold grey headstone.

_Sarah Williams_  
1971-2000  
Loved of the loveliest  
From the great deep to the great deep she goes 

“Precious thing,” he murmurs and places a shimmering white rose on the damp earth. “My Queen.”

Then he changes into a barn owl (he uses extra glitter just for her) and flies away.

~*~

Finding her killer takes longer than he wants, but at last he tracks him down to a dingy flat near the scene of the murder.

He waits until the man is in bed then appears dressed as a priest. He ignores the terrified blubbering about how it was all an accident, and waves a hand: rope slithers through the air and winds itself around the man’s wrists, tying him to the bedpost.

“I-I thought priests w-were sup-p-posed to show m-mercy,” he babbles, sweat dripping into his piggy eyes.

Jareth smiles, showing his fangs. “I am not a priest.” Then he shoves a peach into the man’s mouth and sits back to watch.

The man wriggles and twists like the worm that he is but his mouth moves on its own, biting, chewing, swallowing; his struggling ceases and his eyes roll back into his head. The peach pit falls to the bed. Still, Jareth waits. Then the man begins to twitch and convulse, his face contorting, mouth open in a silent scream. 

Jareth rises. “Enjoy hell,” he whispers.

Then he walks into the night and vows to forget.

He should have known better.

~*~

It has been fourteen years since he kidnapped a child.

He stands on the hill – the same hill – challenging a young girl to solve his Labyrinth, but she only stares at him uncomprehendingly. Over her shoulder the air ripples and he sees another girl with brown hair and intelligent eyes; she lifts her chin and starts forward. 

“Sarah…”

The blonde in front of him frowns harder. “What?”

The vision disappears. He sends the girl away and gives her back her little sister. 

Then he levels the hill and goes back to his castle.

~*~

It is not enough. She is everywhere and nowhere, her will as strong as his – stronger – even in death. She is a whisper on the pathway, striding through the Labyrinth; a smirk in the tunnels – _“It’s a piece of cake!”_ – an angel, glorious and incorruptible, in the ballroom. He sees her in his waking hours and dreams of her while he sleeps, certain her footsteps echo in the halls and that she lay beside him through the night. Through the crystals he watched her grow from a girl into a woman, learning to feel the beat of her heart as though it were his own. _Better_ than his own.

And now there remains only silence. The twilit sky turns to blood and he grows thorns as black as night and strong as steel to keep travellers out of the Labyrinth, for they still come seeking adventure. He watches as they impale themselves on the thorns and die screaming for mercy, their blood running through the cracks in the stone. Those canny enough to avoid the thorns disappear into the oubliettes and turn to madness and eventually to dust. 

One by one the goblins and other creatures creep away and the land falls silent, choked with thorns. And the king of the goblins sprawls on his throne, eyes fixed on a clock frozen one stroke shy of the thirteenth hour.

“I am the king,” he whispers. “I am the king…”

~*~

_“I know it’s you,” she said, staring up at the tree._

_Surprised – yet oddly proud – he swooped down from the tree and took his natural form. “How?” he asked._

_She leaned against the porch pillar, chewing on her lip – an old habit he remembered well. “The Labyrinth…marked me. I see things differently now. I spent a few days on Skye, hiking all over the place, and I saw the faeries.”_

_“And what did you think of them?”_

_“Beautiful. Mischievous.” She looked him right in the eye. “Dangerous.”_

_He threw back his head and laughed. She had learned, his Sarah._

_She tilted her head, green eyes studying him and her gaze was too serious; unease settled across his shoulders. “It’s been thirteen years since the Labyrinth. Why are you here now?”_

_He waved a hand airily. “It’s Samhain. The walls are thin and rules were made to be broken.”_

_She raised an eyebrow. “You never played by the rules anyway.”_

_“What would have been the fun in that?”_

_“You stole my brother.”_

_“You wished him away first.”_

_“You tried to kill me with the cleaners.”_

_He smirks. “Not kill you, Sarah…spur you on.”_

_“Right. I was fifteen, Jareth.”_

_“And I am the Goblin King. There are rules, Sarah.”_

_She glared at him, unimpressed, and he laughed softly, delighted by the fire snapping in her eyes. She was glorious, fierce, when she was angry._

_As he watched, her anger faded and her face took on a thoughtful expression; once again she was too serious and he found it unsettling, for it was almost as though she could see through him. “You never answered my question – you probably didn’t mean to. Jareth, why are you here now?”_

_For the second time in one night she said his name and the way it rolled off her tongue made him smile, a strange warmth filling the dark corners of his heart. Yet as he looked into her face, older, wiser, radiant, he suddenly felt the distance between them; a distance he had no power to bridge. His smile changed and where a moment ago he felt warmth, there was a dull ache._

_“You have grown into quite a woman, Sarah. They would have written songs about you in ages past.”_

_He didn’t stay to hear her reply. Even after so long, he had no power over her._

~*~

Blood twilight hovers on the edge of darkness and still he sits on his throne, one gloved hand covering his eyes. At last he looks up, the movement stiff, his bones aching.

“I have no power over you…but you have power over me,” he whispers, acknowledging at last.

The Labyrinth breathes a sigh of relief – _Finally,_ it whispers – and plunges into darkness. The clock strikes its final chime, the thirteenth hour, and Jareth breathes in once, exhales—

And with barely a whisper he dies.

~*~

“Jareth? I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Nor I you, Sarah.”

~*~

“I fain would follow love, if that could be;  
I needs must follow death, who calls for me;  
Call and I follow, I follow! let me die.”  
― Alfred Tennyson, _Idylls of the King_  


**Author's Note:**

> All poetry quotes are taken from Tennyson's "Idylls of the King", which is absolutely gorgeous. If you love the legends of King Arthur and good poetry, you'll love it. It's one of my favourite renditions.


End file.
